OECD review of education in Wales requested by Leighton Andrews

Education and Skills Minister Leighton Andrews has today requested the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) review education in Wales.

Monday 10 December 2012

The Minister made the announcement while visiting Paris to meet OECD representatives on international best practice and how that can be implemented in Wales.

The Welsh Government’s key objectives for the review are:

To provide an external assessment of the quality and equity of education outcomes in Wales.

To draw upon lessons from PISA and other benchmarking countries/regions with an expert analysis of key aspects of education policy in Wales.

To invite the OECD, on the basis of their analysis, to highlight areas of policy and its implementation which might add further value to our reform programme for improving education outcomes for young people in Wales.

The review will focus on 3 to 16 education while having regard to the important transitions to and from this stage of education. The review will offer insights from international experience and good practice to help explain the observed outcomes in Wales.

In particular the review will consider the current reform programme as set out in “Improving Schools” and comment upon whether the actions are sufficient to provide all children with the opportunity to succeed.

The review will consider outcomes for young people from different social backgrounds and those children with additional needs, for example, looked after children, children with English as an additional language, from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and children with additional learning needs.

The OECD review will report in March 2014.

Leighton Andrews said:

"I have made a clear commitment to raising standards and performance in schools across Wales. To achieve this we must improve levels of literacy and numeracy and reduce the impact of deprivation on educational attainment.

"I’ve already put in place many of the policies needed to drive improvement but it’s really important that we understand where we stand globally if we really want to deliver the best outcomes for children and young people in Wales.

"If we’re to be amongst the best we need to learn from the best, that’s why I have requested this review."